Cabins for Rent in Northern Wisconsin

Our Mercer, Wisconsin cabin rentals are the perfect family and fishing getaway in northern Wisconsin. Island View Lodge is located on Fisher Lake, a chain of three lakes totaling approximately 900 acres. Excellent largemouth, smallmouth, panfish, northern and musky fishing. Not a great walleye lake, although over 2,000 walleye fry were stocked during the winter of 2022 so hopefully that will change! All cabins are lakefront (except cabin 10) with screened in porches and their own private pier. We now have electricity on or near every pier for convenient charging stations. Rentals go from Saturday to Saturday in June, July and August. In September we’ll take what we can get with a two night minimum! We close down in early October.

The Island View Experience

We don’t believe in false advertising so we want to be upfront with you right off the bat. Island View is 96 years old. It’s not a luxury resort. It was built in 1927 as a small fishing resort and every previous owner has kept it that way. We intend to do the same. It’s a truly fantastic trip back in time and one of the few remaining classic Up North resorts. Most other resorts have been sold off as condos or torn down to make way for a mansion. Come and experience a piece of history!

This is NOT the place for you if you are looking for WIFI, air conditioning, TVs, or a million bedrooms and bathrooms. The cabins are small. Very small. They were built with the expectation you will be spending most of your time outside. Only Cabins 5 and 10 have a queen bed, otherwise we’re dealing with full size mattresses. The rooms are simply too small to fit a queen. There is no sandy beach. Our shoreline is a combination of an old rock retaining wall that has fallen apart and just natural. Excellent fish habitat, not ideal for letting your toddler run amok. The area in front of the bar is the most popular swimming spot and has a new swim platform for your enjoyment! Unfortunately, we do not have the best layout for people who have trouble getting around. There are stairs or a hill to get to most of the cabins and to the lake. Cabins 9 and 10 are the most easily accessible, and you can park nearly at the door. You do still have to do a hill or stairs to get from them to the lake though.

That is the negative. Everything else is a huge positive! The vast majority of people who stay here stay here again. And again! We have multiple families who have been coming here for generations.

The bar DOES have WIFI that is accessible 24/7 and a TV if you’re desperate to watch your stories. We have resisted modernizing the cabins because that would inevitably open the gates for a totally different clientele and vacation experience. We like things how they are. If you need to wheel and deal on Zoom full time or if your kid literally cannot go on without their Xbox, this is probably not going to work out. We’re simple people with a simple resort looking for simple customers just wanting to enjoy the Great Outdoors during their week Up North!

There is a bar/restaurant located on site that is open six days a week. The Lodge opens at 4pm during the week and at noon on weekends. Please plan to fend for yourselves for weekday lunches and on Mondays.

For your sake and ours, please do NOT stay here if you:

Are wanting to be loud, obnoxious and party outside your cabin until the wee hours. The cabins are fairly close together and this is just plain rude to do to your neighbors. People come here to get away from that. There is a very nice free campground a couple miles down the road you can stay at if you want to be loud and outside all night. Please stay there instead. *We are serious about this. If you come and are an idiot – you will not be allowed to re-book.*
Can’t handle mosquitoes – they are bad. Really bad at times. This is normal and there is nothing we can do about it. Flies come and go also. It’s the great Northwoods! There’s a price to pay to be in paradise and unfortunately this is it.
Need high speed internet or a constant phone signal. We have the best/fastest service available but it is not great. Verizon is spotty but AT&T actually works pretty well here. The bar has good WIFI and is available 24/7 on the porch. The Mercer Library welcomes vacationers to work from there and use their WIFI. Also….you’re on vacation. Put the phone down! Life is too short.
Are going to be a pain in the ass. We need business, but not bad enough to deal with that. Island View is many peoples’ happy place. We don’t want you here if you aren’t going to be happy no matter how hard we try. 99.5% of our customers are AWESOME but we do get the rare person who expects this to be downtown Chicago. It isn’t. Everything here is either super old and cobbled together or new because we have recently fixed it. We are fixing as much as we can as time goes on, but we can’t do it all at once. If you want 5 star accommodations, try these.
Are an extreme slob. Your mom doesn’t work here (although, does she want to? Have her call us). Normal wear and tear is expected in the cabins but if it takes us HOURS to clean up after you, you will never be staying here again.

Please DO stay here if:

You want to get away from it all and unplug in a beautiful, remote, peaceful area
You want to spend time on a gorgeous chain of lakes
You want easy access to fishing or boating on pristine waters
You want to sit on your screened in porch and listen to loons and watch hummingbirds
You want to have the world’s best view of the sunrise
You want a small bar/restaurant a short walk from your door for convenient snacks, games or conversation
You want to make lifelong friends with your hosts and/or other people who stay here. On the other hand, if you’re looking for complete solitude that works too!
You want to enjoy the hundreds of miles of ATV trails Iron County has to offer
You want to have a nice vacation with your family for what comes out to be less expensive than most hotels
You want to have FUN
You want to bring your pet(s) and not get charged
You have a sense of humor and can roll with the punches
You want to support a couple of people trying EXTREMELY hard to succeed